


Now and Always

by gwendolyncooper



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Background James Copley, Gen, Internal Monologue, POV Second Person, That Scene™, her fucking scream breaks my heart, i just have a lot of feelings about their friendship, mentions of alcohol abuse and depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:07:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28431390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwendolyncooper/pseuds/gwendolyncooper
Summary: Andy trusts Booker with her life. She never saw the bullet coming.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Booker | Sebastien le Livre
Comments: 5
Kudos: 25





	Now and Always

“Book?”

“I’m right here.”

_ I’m right here, _ he says, and you trust him. You face down a man who calls you by name, who names you  _ The Eternal Warrior, _ and you trust the man behind you. Your family is missing -- likely dead a hundred times over and definitely tortured. The girl you tried to take in has left. She’ll be back, they always are, but at least she’s safe.

So it’s you and Booker.

Now and always.

_ I’m right here, _ he says, and you leave everything behind you to him. Guns, soldiers, heaven and hell and the fucking  _ devil _ himself could come through those doors, and Booker will have your back. You’ve had his for two hundred years.  _ You _ found him -- you retrieved him. You always do, with the new ones. You’re the person to track them down, to explain this terrifying new world of immortality to them.

With Quynh, you were gentle. With Lykon, less so. Joe and Nicky -- well, they had each other already, so you were drawn into their banter lightning-quick. With Booker -- well, Book was the one who understood you most. When you pulled him from the bottom of a bottle and told him you couldn’t die, either, he laughed. He laughed in a tone of bitterness that wrenched at your heart, because it is the sound you hear in your own mind.

So you sat down and had a drink with him.

Booker, who’s cynicism has only ever paralleled yours. Who is the one who sits with you on roofs at night, staring at the stars and discussing how they’ve changed. He’s the one who drags you out of bed when you feel you can’t move because he’s not dealing with the next fucking day alone. He’s the one who gets into fistfights with you when neither of you can suppress the simmering  _ rage _ at what the universe has come to.

He’s not the only one who has spent nights sobbing in your arms out of grief and loneliness. But you are the only one who has held him when he does. Booker is the bookend to your grief, to your rage, to your  _ fucking goddamn desperation. _ He’s the child to your ancient life. He’s the only one with the patience to walk you through the trials of technology and the new century when you can’t work a goddamn phone. He’s the one who won’t die before you -- at least, not for a long time. He’s the one you trust to stay alive.

And right now, when you are at your most vulnerable, Booker has your back.

_ I’m right here. _

And when you feel a bullet enter your body, you have only one thought in your mind:  _ Booker had your back. You’ve been shot without warning. _

_ Booker is dead. _

It’s your job to protect him for the moments he is helpless, but there are hands on you, grabbing you, pulling you backwards and --

And you know those hands, that breath, that scent like you know your own.

The world slows on its axis for a moment, and you realize: Booker shot you. Booker is holding you now, pulling your hands behind you.

“What are you doing?”

“Calm down--”

“ _ What are you doing?! _ ”

“Andy, calm down!”

But you don’t. His betrayal hits you like a freight train, like an avalanche, like a bullet to the face, and you  **_scream._ ** You scream for the fear, you scream for the pain, you scream for the weeping man you have held in your arms night after night. For the man immortality has broken. For the trust you gave him that  _ he _ has broken. For Sebastian Le Livre, the man you love as your own flesh and blood.

He’s betrayed you all.

The  **fucking** traitor.

_ Why? _


End file.
